Animal Emotions

On the subject of animals expressing grief, I once witnessed a squirrel funeral. A squirrel tried to jump from the tree in my front yard to the electric line wire and then presumably was headed toward my front porch. His aim was off, he teetered on the wire for a few seconds and then fell to the ground, where he died instantly. A few minutes later, I looked out to see about 15 squirrels in a circle around their fallen friend. They each went up and patted his arm or shook him by pressing on his chest, then stood on their hind legs in the circle with their heads held down until a car went by and they scattered. It was clear from watching the squirrels that day that (1) they knew something bad had happened to their friend, (2) they had tried to wake him or get a reaction from him, and (3) they were very subdued when they couldn't rouse him. It was stunning to watch, and I now believe that animals are more aware of death than we realize.

The study on dogs is really about impulse control, not "self" control (dogs show no signs of having a sense of self). And it was inspired, in part, by a 1998 study about "Ego Depletion: Is the Active Self a Limited Resource," which harkens back to Freud's theories on how the Ego (which correlates with the pre-frontal cortex) is in charge of suppressing impulses coming from the ID (the limbic system). In it the authors wrote, "the theory that volition is one of the self's crucial functions can be traced back at least to Freud (1923/ 1961a, 1933/1961b), who described the ego as the part of the psyche that must deal with the reality of the external world by mediating between conflicting inner and outer pressures. ... Freud also seems to have believed that the ego needed to use some energy in making such a decision. ... [and] he recognized the conceptual value of postulating that the ego operated on an energy model."

I use a similar "energy model" in my work as a dog trainer, and wrote an article on this topic a few weeks ago: "Sigmund Freud and the Art of Dog Training, Pt. II." As for animals feeling "grief," I suggest that we make a distinction between the sense of shock and loss animals feel when finding a dead companion (i.e., one whose life energy is no longer radiating back to them), and grief, which requires a corresponding mental thought process.

One of the problems in dealing with animal vs. human emotions is that D'Amasio's (and by extension Panksepp's) definitions of the different types of emotion are, I think, slightly off the mark. D'Amasio says there are primary and secondary emotions, just as there are primary and secondary colors, implying (or possibly suggesting) that when you mix primary emotions you get secondary ones.

I would say that, yes, emotions are like colors, in that they have specific wavelengths and specific vibrations, but that the two types should be called simple emotions, meaning they're pure, unadulterated emotion, and complex emotions, meaning they have a human-like thought process added on top of them.

When we feel grief, we don't just sense the loss of the other's life energy, we engage in all kinds of internal narratives, mental time travel, survivor's guilt, wishful thinking, etc., and impose those thoughts on top of our sense of loss. Are animals capable of internal narrative, mental time travel, survivor guilt, wishful thinking, and all the other forms of mentation that are part of the complex emotion of grief, or do they just feel the shock and loss? And frankly, which is worse? Being able to rationalize one's feelings, to work them out mentally, or to NOT have that ability? It strikes me that the emotions animals feel may be more painful than they would be if they were able to feel actual grief.

As for what Marty says about the "squirrel funeral," I've seen squirrels attack and kill one another. How much of what we observe in animals comes for our natural tendency to anthropomorphize animals (which Bekoff has written about), and how much is an accurate estimation of their real cognitive abilities?

LCK

ANIMALS ARE SMART, AND DO GRIEVE!!!!!!!!